Can Democrats gain the 17 seats they need to win control of the House in 2014? Maybe, but the numbers look forbidding. Remember that while Barack Obama was reelected with 332 electoral votes he carried only 209 of the 435 congressional districts. Mitt Romney carried 226. Only 17 Republicans were elected in districts carried by Obama; 9 Democrats were elected in districts carried by Romney. It is theoretically possible for Democrats to win a majority in 2014 by defeating all of the 17 Republicans in Obama districts while reelecting all of the 9 Democrats in Romney districts. But that’s not a very likely scenario. Obama carried most of those 17 districts by only narrow margins, and with the aid of more Democratically tilted electorate in the presidential year of 2012 than is likely to turn out in the off-year of 2014.
So for all practical purposes Democrats must defeat at least some Republicans in Romney districts in order to win a House majority. That could be entirely possible if opinion swings away from Republicans and toward Democrats, as it did between 2004 and 2006. But there is not much sign of that happening yet, and the scandal news these days doesn’t seem like a conducive environment for such a development.
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